“…Characters in Group 1 were: a) plant height (PH), in cm, measured from the soil level to the apical bud; b) number of completely expanded green leaves (NL); c) stem height (SH), in cm, measured from the insertion of the stem into the soil until the basis of leaf primordia; d) stem diameter (SD), in mm, measured with a digital caliper rule, at 2.0cm below the apical bud; e) leaf area (LA), obtained from the longer and wider linear measures, in dm 2 , using the formula described by OLFATI et al (2010), collected on the 17 and 32DAT. For characters a), b), c) and d), values from two dates were considered: the 21 and 58DAT, according to DINIZ et al (2008). Characters in Group 2 were: a) mass of fresh matter of broccoli heads (HM), being the broccoli head cut at 2.5cm of the peduncle from the last insertion in the inflorescence, and immediately evaluated to avoid water loss; b) canopy area (CA) in the crop was calculated based on the superior transversal and longitudinal average radius of the canopy throughout the plantation line according to the methodology described by DINIZ et al (2008).…”